


our endless numbered days

by Kierkegarden



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Dialogue Heavy, Heavy Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 14:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16703788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kierkegarden/pseuds/Kierkegarden
Summary: Some days were silent, and some days passed without so much as a glance. Some days were filled with banter, and other days with cold, cutting truths. Without the mirror bond, Albus thought, he might still be trying to forget that summer.





	our endless numbered days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enoby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enoby/gifts).



> A huge thank you to Enoby for not only giving me the idea for this story, but also taking the time to send pics of her copy of HBP so I could jog my memory. Also, I'm sorry but I don't follow Fantastic Beasts canon even outside of the obvious point of canon divergence.

The hour was late but the sky wasn’t quite dark. Red hues illuminated the edges of grey clouds, a tapestry that hung low over the rolling farmland of Godric’s Hollow. Out the windows of the Bagshot Estate, it seemed to stretch endlessly, Albus thought, feeling altogether boundless. Gellert looked over to him, squeezing his hand reassuringly.

“Nervous?”

“A little,” Albus admitted, his voice catching in his throat. He was still enamored, full of awe that he was even here, hand-in-hand with a boy like this.

Gellert’s blond hair fell in loose ringlets around his shoulders and Albus could faintly smell the ash from the fireplace on his person. The air was very still in the library, the events to come humming off the grandfather clock, the floor-to-ceiling shelves, and the full-length mirror. Albus shivered. He couldn’t think straight, words muddling in his head before they reached his lips.  They sat down across the table from one another, hands still clasped over the giant tome, just like they had practiced the night before.

“Gellert,” Albus started, suddenly unsure. He tapped his heel against the foot of his chair, “You do realize the implications of such a bond could prevent us from ever…”

“I only mean,” he started again, “Under the Imperiatus curse, say, you are possessed to do something horrible and the only way to stop you is to knock you out.”

“I should hope you would go after the wizard who cursed me instead,” Gellert laughed, “We are carved from the same wood, Albus. Turned against one another, we would be nothing.”

Albus nodded very quickly. The idea of a bond was as enticing as it was forbidden, but he couldn’t shake the suspicion that Gellert had predicted his betrayal.

“You know I’d never turn against you, right? I’m yours, Gellert, utterly.”

“And I’m yours,” Gellert extended one finger to save his place on tome in front of him. He turned to kiss Albus on the cheek, whispering just below his ear, “Forever.”

The word sent a tingling sensation down Albus’s spine. His entire life before June was a blur of faceless shadows, meaningless acknowledgements. Ahead, the sky was vast. Ahead was forever. Breathing in deep, Albus let his body relax.

“Alright,” he said, “I’m ready.”

Gellert smiled, satisfied, “I am too.”

He let Albus’s hand go, positioning it upwards on the table and drew his wand. Albus watched the tip trace a path along his life line, his palm balling around the foreign sensation. Then, Gellert moved towards his own hand to repeat the gesture.

The incantation was forged differently than the Latin spell bases Albus was used to. Gellert read in a whisper, the words hopping alive off the page, dancing in clouds of centuries-old magic.

Blood sprung from Gellert’s flesh at his wand tip, and Albus looked on, in disgust and fascination. Taking a deep breath, he drew his own.

“I surrender myself to you,” said Gellert softly.

Albus’s hand shook, drawing closer to Gellert’s wound, and then back to his own palm. When he pressed down, he felt the sting of fresh blood. “And I, to you.”

Their hands met, fingers interlocking. Albus’s breath caught in his throat, a little noise escaping his lips as a wave of euphoria washed over him. He could no longer feel the pain searing through his hand. All he could feel was freedom, boundlessness, although he’d signed a degree of his freedom away and as far as he cared, the world had been narrowed down to one room.

“Is it done?” Albus asked, when his breath returned to him.

Gellert didn’t respond right away, his pupils dilating back down, gaining clarity, as they followed the cloud of words and blood. It was drifting away in strands, towards the depths of the mirror.

Gellert looked back at Albus. “Where is it going?”

“I -- don’t know,” Albus shook himself out of the dreamlike state, shrugging off the urge to remain static, hands intertwined, “You’re the expert on binding oaths. ”

Gellert shook his hand free, heading towards the mirror.

“Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

He sunk to his knees in front of the mirror, pressing a hand against the glass. “There’s supposed to be a totem. The pact was supposed to make a totem but it just disappeared in there.”

Albus frowned, thumbing through the book. The pages were so old so old that it felt like they were disintegrating beneath his fingertips. His eyes scanned the pages for information about mirrors, finding nothing.

“Gellert, it’s alright,” Albus walked over to the other boy, offering his hand, “We can try again in a few weeks, when the wounds have healed.”

“No,” said Gellert, pulled himself away. “We can’t risk this. It’s a strange and unpredictable magic. Redoing the vow could kill us. That was our only chance.”

Albus sighed. The pact had been so important to Gellert, it was all he could talk about for days. Albus himself hadn’t seen the point. They were so intertwined within three weeks, that Albus could no longer imagine a life without him.

“We don’t need magic to hold us to our oath,” he offered, “We did the ritual. It doesn’t matter that there isn’t a totem.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Gellert said, getting to his feet, “We’ll find another way.”

 

A day had passed before Albus realized what had happened. That morning, he had woken up early to do chores with his siblings. A gentle breeze rustled the curtains as Albus lay his clothing out across his bed.

During his youth, laundry had been his mother’s responsibility. Albus hadn’t even bothered to learn how to charm the washbucket until she had passed. During Kendra’s funeral, Albus had stood stoically, not shedding a tear. It was simple things like household chores or braiding Ariana’s hair -- private things -- that made him cry.

Albus didn’t do these things half as much as he should, and Aberforth was always coming after him for it. He blamed Albus’s arrogance, and more recently, Gellert. The truth was that Kendra’s death had left Albus emotionally wrung out, and it was all he could do to take care of himself, let alone the others. He had never wanted any of this.

“Why did you have to leave us?” Albus whispered to his mother, or father, or whoever else might be listening. Wiping his wet eyes on his sleeve, he pushed the clothes to a pile on the end of his bed and moved towards his desk.

Across a stack of borrowed books, Albus spotted it: a small hand mirror he had inherited from his mother. Running his fingers along the mirror’s intricate bronze back, he studied himself. Like Kendra, his skin was tan and his nose long, but he had his father’s eyes: piercing blue and relentless. Albus imagined them staring back at him, from his prison cell. He was so transfixed by the thought, that it took him a moment to notice a second set of eyes join him in the mirror.

Albus spun around, wand drawn, but found himself staring only at the pile of clean laundry. When he turned back towards the mirror, Gellert stood beside him, fully formed.

“Albus?” Gellert let out a little laugh of disbelief.

“Gellert!” Albus replied, equally dumbfounded, “How can I hear you? How can I _see_ you?”

Gellert stepped back, looking at his palm where the wound was still fresh, “It must be...”

Albus suddenly realized with a flush of embarrassment that Gellert was dressed to go out, in a lovely green vest, whereas he himself was still wearing his sleep shirt. The tracks from his tears were still wet on his cheeks and his eyes were still puffy. He turned away.

“Where are you?” Gellert asked, moving closer, “I’ve never seen such a thing in my life.”

“I’m in my bedroom,” Albus whispered, “At my desk in front of my mirror.”

“Incredible,” Suddenly, Albus’s perspective on Gellert skewed so that Gellert was looking up his nose at him, “What do you see on your end now?”

“I see you, Gellert. And a multitude of nose hairs."

Gellert laughed at that, his image in the mirror shifting so that they were level.

Albus rubbed his eyes. “The oath must have latched on to the mirror in the library.”

“It did bind us to each other,” Gellert nodded, “but through the mirror instead of a totem.”

“Gellert...” Albus started once again, only to be interrupted. He jumped as his bedroom door swung open, slamming against the wall. Aberforth stood in the doorway, covered in mud, forefinger pointed righteously ahead.

“Aha!” he shouted, “I knew it was only a matter of time before you brought him here.”

“One moment,” Albus said to the mirror, as Aberforth stormed in.

“Who’re you talking to?” He demanded, looking over Albus’s shoulder at Gellert’s reflection, “Where is he? Have you gone mad?”

Albus snorted. Of course Aberforth couldn’t see Gellert in the mirror. He felt wave of pride run through his body. Aberforth could never understand what he had with Gellert, he simply didn’t have the capacity.

“Where is who?” Albus molded his face into an expression of concern, “Aberforth, are you feeling alright? I thought you were supposed to be feeding the goats.”

Aberforth slammed his fist on Albus’s desk. “Oh, I get it. You’re just practicing in front of the mirror like a third year going on her first date. Tell me how it goes. Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t bring you flowers.”

“That’s quite enough,” Albus looked apologetically at Gellert, “Whatever your problem is with Gellert, you can kindly take it out of my room.”

Aberforth wiped his dirty hands on his dirtier tunic and scoffed, turning on his heel.

“I don’t know who you are anymore, Albus,” he said, over his shoulder. Albus rolled his eyes, rising to shut the door behind him, just as Aberforth slammed it in on him. He turned back to Gellert, who was watching intently through the mirror.

“I’m sorry. Aberforth is like that sometimes.”

“Like what?” Gellert cocked his head, “I gather he was once again unkind to me, but I don’t mind. I only heard your side of the conversation and that is always enough.”

Albus licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry.

 

Albus had never been vain about his appearance. Cocky, yes, and even arrogant about his natural skill in magic. He was a gifted caster and a prolific reader, and prided himself on being worldly. However, his time in front of the mirror had always been limited and self deprecating. That was, until the oath.

During the hours Albus spent alone at his desk, he frequently glanced up at his own reflection, in the hope that Gellert’s eyes would look back at him.

Aberforth nodded in approval as Albus brought Chip’s cage back out into the dining room. The family owl had cawed and nuzzled Albus’s hand as if to thank him for no longer sending her back and forth on nightly excursions across town.

The gratification of the mirror bond was instant, it was intense, and it was overwhelming. Albus and Gellert made plans nightly by mirror and candlelight and spent the days together, traversing Godric’s Hollow.

On this particular evening, Albus’s hair was still damp from his bath, combed flat down his back. He reached for his wand to dry it, the open book on his desk collecting little splotches of water as he flipped it over. It was then, through strands of deep auburn, that he saw Gellert’s figure, rippling and pale, stark naked in his mirror.

Albus gasped, feeling himself flush a deep crimson. He could just make out Gellert’s distorted smile.

“So it works then,” his friend said, coyly. Albus forcibly moved his eyes up, up, up his body to where Gellert’s twinkled back at him.

“Gellert,” Albus strained for his voice to remain firm, the air dying in his lungs. He sounded indecorously breathy and could feel a distinct hardness building in his trousers, “What on earth are you doing?”

Gellert lowered his body, his feet and legs disappearing, as his face bent closer to Albus. “Just a late night swim in the lake,” he cooed, “I never knew English summers could be so sweltering.”

“Gellert,” Albus hissed, “You’re naked.”

“And? I couldn’t have known that my reflection in the water would trigger the bond,” Gellert shrugged, letting himself go deeper. The moonlight and shadows danced with one another across his skin. Albus had never seen anything so beautiful.

“Besides,” Gellert added, “It doesn’t seem like you mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t be coy, Albus,” He disappeared for a moment, his head slipping down into the water. Albus stared at his own reflection painfully, as though Gellert had ripped his very world off its axis. Then, he resurfaced, shaking his golden curls free and Albus sighed in relief.

“It isn’t proper to barge naked into somebody’s room at night,” Albus trained his eyes on Gellert’s as they looked down at him curiously.

“Oh? Is it not? Since when have we cared what is proper?”

Albus shook his head. “You’re a bad influence on me, Gellert. My brother is quite right not to trust you.”

Gellert laughed. “Ssh. You’re boring me with all this talk of what your brother wants. I want to know what you want.”

“You,” Albus said, surprising even himself. He took a deep breath, adjusting the collar of his sleep shirt, “I want you, have wanted you. But I think you already know that.”

Albus let his eyes wander now, memorizing every centimeter of Gellert’s body. He had given in, let Gellert win. He was only waiting for it - whatever they were building, to come crashing down. Instead, Gellert’s voice purred back at him.

“Good,” he ran a hand up his neck, where the water splashed in tiny droplets off the base of his hairline, “You know where to find me.”

 

Those days had been short, Albus thought, a dream cut off too quickly. The summer died suddenly and Albus’s boyhood with it. Ariana’s hands were crossed; her long blond hair, a halo for her head. She lay, bolt still, in the white sundress that she had worn that day, still smeared with dirt and blood. Gellert, with his laugh, had not taken everything from him. It was Albus’s own blindness that had ended her life.

Albus was left without an idol. The dirt was cold and compact, his muscles twinging as the shovel bounced back off of it. Aberforth wrenched his deep into the soil, somehow. He always had been capable of more, when it came to her.

They buried Ariana next to her mother. Albus could almost feel Kendra’s grave watching him lay her family to rest. The grave of Ignotus watched too, mockingly, holding Albus’s delusions far over his head, where he could not yet reach.

You actually believed in a children’s story, it said silently, so much that you gave her life for it.

Death won, in the end.

The funeral was small, ten chairs behind the graveyard. Bathilda wept, Albus thought, for Ariana and her nephew both. Albus stood between her and Aberforth in uncomfortable silence as the pastor finished the ceremony.

“We couldn’t have known what he was,” Bathilda whispered, drying Albus’s tears with her handkerchief, “It’s not your fault, my boy.”

Aberforth shoved Albus away. His face was raw and ruddy as he yelled unintelligibly to the sky.

“This is all your fault!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, causing the funeral guests to wince, “It should have been you!”

“Aberforth!” said Bathilda and Elphias in unison. Albus said nothing. The punch to his face was clean and hard and Albus felt tears well up in his eyes as the bridge of his nose snapped. Bathilda pulled Aberforth away, holding him as he sobbed..

“Come here,” Elphias extended Albus a hand, “I’ll get my wand and fix it.”

“Don’t,” Albus reached up to feel the warm trickle of blood. He was dizzy, the smell of iron and mucus a welcome distraction.

Later, Albus sat at his desk, applying bandages by hand and stuffing his nostrils with cotton. Elphias lay on top of his bedroll, recalling memories of Ariana, a vapid gesture that did more harm than good. In Albus’s mirror, a shadow materialized, first foggy but then clear.

“Your face,” Gellert said, furrowing his brow, “What happened?”

“And the time she made a bouquet of pussywillows,” Elphias said.

“Get away from me!” Albus grabbed the little mirror and threw it down on the ground with such force that it shattered, shards of reflective glass flying all across the floor.

Elphias looked at Albus, tears building behind his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m sorry. I should have known I wasn’t helping.”

“Wait!” Albus called after him, but he couldn’t will himself to move. Instead, his body shook as he cradled his head on his desk, tears blurring the promise of Beetle the Bard, through its open, aging pages.

 

Like anyone, Albus packed his aching heart and took it elsewhere. He filled his ears with the eager questions of students. He filled his free time with research and writing and reading, quiet escapes from Gellert’s looming presence.

The boy that who had once enflamed him was now a wildfire, spreading rapidly across Europe, and sweeping idealists into the fray. He raged on, the plans they had once laid out for wizarding control like kindling to a world ready to burn. Albus ran from his shame. He ran from the wanted posters and the Minister’s questions.

“I can’t,” he said, when he was asked why he wouldn’t stand against Grindelwald.

“I made a pact,” he said, to those he trusted a bit more, “and I sealed it with our blood.”

He never told anyone the truth.

Albus saw Gellert in the mirror several times a week. Each time, he felt himself being torn wide open again. The wound was always raw, though the scar on his hand had faded. He’d lower his eyes and Gellert would talk to him.

“I miss you,” he’d say, “Nobody will ever take your place.”

“I love you,” he said, once, causing Albus to look back up for a split second, “Love can never be vanquished.”

Every time, Albus ignored him, set the mirror down on its face until Gellert’s voice faded to the wind. The bond was a constant reminder of Albus’s shame.

Gellert was not the boy he had once been, malleable and open to suggestion. His methods were cruel and uncompromising, as he stole Albus’s rhetoric. “Controlling muggles” became “aiding muggles, lending them our magic so that they may be guided towards the light.”

“How many of you have been the victim of muggle violence, simply because they could not understand your power?” Gellert asked, once, during a rally. He looked towards Albus in a puddle on the crowded streets of the Prague underground. There was no malice present in his voice when he looked up again and said, “Let me tell you the story of a young girl I once knew.”

It was vile and it was imprisonment and, Albus thought, it was everything he deserved.

Gellert’s age showed fiercely in his face, the result of many counts of dark magic. His hair had become muted, diseased and his grey eyes dull. Albus watched Gellert’s life drain out of him, as he tore through Europe in search of the Hallows, picking up followers at every stop. A true Master of Death, Albus thought, for wherever Gellert went, a trail of bodies followed. Albus was unsure of how many Hallows Gellert had collected, but there was no doubt that he was intimate with killing.

Cowards, Albus thought, as he shut himself away, The both of us. We are both wicked and cowardly and terribly alone.

 

By 1919, Albus stopped calling the man in the mirror Gellert, and instead called him Grindelwald, like the rest of the world. So many years had passed, so many violent years, that he could pretend they never knew each other. It was almost too easy to imagine that the boy from that summer had left before his innocence.

There were times when delusion wouldn’t do, of course, but Albus no longer turned away. He learned to face those eyes and give his silence willfully. Gellert didn’t seem to mind, he just talked on, as though Albus wasn’t even there.

One morning, as Albus watched Gellert get dressed for a rally, he decided he no longer even owed him that much. His eyes followed Gellert’s hands, reaching into a basin to scrub his face. Soap bubbles glistened in the fine hairs of Gellert’s moustache, a feature that Albus had always hated.

Albus was sure that that was the point. After all, he wore posh muggle business suits because Gellert hated them. There was no point in pretending that they didn’t sustain a modicum of control over the other’s choices.

Perhaps that was why it caught his attention that morning, when Gellert drew the razor to his lip -- eyes fixed on Albus like a challenge -- and then slowly lowered it down again.

“No,” he said to himself, “Not today.”

Albus felt an unprecedented wave of fury run though him.

“Why?” he demanded, “Why in Merlin’s name do you do this?”

Gellert’s eyes lit up. “Thirty years, and that’s the first time you speak to me. That is shallow and petty, Albus, even for you.”

Albus slammed his fist on his desk, rattling the mirror, the pensive, and the books stacked against his shelf.

“You are the very definition of shallow and petty, Gellert.”

“If you didn’t like it,” Gellert brought the razors inches from his lip again, twirling it in his fingers, “You should have said something sooner.”

With careful hands, he ran the blade over his lip, pulling it taught over his teeth. Little blond hairs fell around his reflection. Albus shuttered in anger, taking a deep breath.

“What is wrong with you, Gellert? Do you not have anyone else to haunt?”

Gellert smiled, perhaps the only aspect of his young self that remained unaffected. “A pact goes two ways, Albus,” he said, “Do you not understand that I, too, am haunted?”

 

“The _gatyas,_ ” Albus murmured under his breath, one day when his morning tea was interrupted by a reflection of Gellert dressed in colorful, embroidered linen, “the fur cap. You must be in Hungary.”

It was 1930 and the echoes of international economic collapse were just starting to breach the wizarding world. Of course, Gellert had picked up the rhetoric instantly. Muggles spoil everything they touch, the story went, when you’re conjuring the same meager dinner for the third day in a row, know that it’s those without your gift at fault. Of course, he never mentioned the muggles who were starving and out of work, those who suffered far worse fates.

“I never took you for a scholar in folk costume,” Gellert snarled. Satisfied, Albus leaned back and smiled.

“I dabble,” he said, “As far as muggle fashion is concerned. What brings the great Gellert Grindelwald to drop his robe for the muggle garments of his motherland?”

The scowl on Gellert’s face was more than rewarding. “My mother’s motherland,” he corrected, “Hungarian muggle borns are fond of their costumes. I can stomach it for a rally.”

“Shall I let the Minister know that you’re in Hungary, then? I’m sure he’ll be grateful to hear it.”

“Do as you like,” Gellert bit his lip in the mirror. “I’m sure he’ll want to know where you got your information before believing it blindly.”

“You underestimate me, Gellert,” Albus sipped quietly at his tea, “You can’t possibly know the raport I have within the Ministry.”

Gellert just stared at him for a moment before clapping his hands down over his heart.

“It really is like looking in a mirror,” he turned away, looking to something Albus couldn’t see, “Vinda, make arrangements to return to base. The rally can wait.”

Turning back to Albus, Gellert breathed a sigh. “We’re so jaded, my dear, I miss when we were sad.”

“You were never sad,” Albus said curtly.

 

By 1938, the facade was gone, and by 1945, they had become so used to each other, that it was habit. There was no way of shaking the bond, and Albus actually felt himself waiting for Gellert on mornings when he was late. He’d sip his tea, and eat the raspberry scones he took in great heaping bagfuls from the house elves to his quarters.

In the great hall, Albus would sit like he hadn’t just been cavorting with the enemy. It was inevitable, like winter snow, like summer sunshine. The seasons cycled outside of his control. This too is beyond my control now, Albus told himself, If I must see him, I can at least do my part.

So Albus talked to him. They vented frustrations to one another, Albus about his students and Gellert about the legions who stood against him - against each other - how muggles were doomed to murder themselves faster than Gellert could save them.

“If only you saved them,” Albus said, flatly.

Gellert sighed. “In the general sense, Albus.” (but his eyes told another story, that Death was on his side, and the more muggles who fell in their own war, the more desperate they became for better guidance.)

After their talks, Albus always felt that strange mixture of disgust and relief. As he lay awake in bed, one night, he supposed it didn’t matter what was said between him and Gellert, because it was all coming to its inevitable head.

The duel was unpreventable reality, but when they had finally faced each other again in the flesh, it felt more like a nightmare. Albus realized darkly that this was probably Gellert’s meaning of the blood pact in the first place. It was a measure of security against his only rival.

When the explosions rendered Godric’s Hollow unrecognizable and Albus stood over Gellert’s body, wand pointed to his chin, he realized that this was inevitable too. Gellert was world weary, his spirit had been drained.

“Kill me,” he commanded, “Put us both out of our misery.”

Albus kept his own wand trained on him, as he reached to pick up Gellert’s. He turned it over in his hand, eyes widening in awe.

“Amazing,” he murmured, “You found it. Why didn’t you kill me with it?”

“KILL ME!” Gellert roared, with the last of his energy. He let himself collapse at Albus’s feet, laying perfectly still.

“Lock him in the prison of his own design,” Albus had told the aurors, “Give him a mirror so he can see who he’s become.”

 

The celebrations were bleak, as Gellert’s throne finally sat empty. Both the wizarding world and the muggle one shivered in the face of antebellum horror. Albus took no pleasure in what he had done, no more than what Gellert couldn’t do. He had no catharsis anymore and sat alone to eat his scones and tea, looking desperately into his desk mirror as though it could be read like tea leaves.

The only eyes that stared back were his own, piercing blue, under aging lids. Albus was so accustomed to looking through people that he barely saw himself. Death of the Ego, it was called in muggle mythos. The man in the mirror was tired, and bitter, and cruel. He had done no great work of service to the wizarding world, nor to himself. Albus pitied him.

During his thirty years of silence, he had never so much been tempted to speak to Gellert. Now, it was all he could do to keep from traveling to Nurmengard and laying himself at his feet. If Gellert had indeed destroyed the mirror he had been given, it was what Albus deserved.

Gellert was no puppet, he could not be given a tool and expected to perform. Nobody had bested him, despite the headlines boasting otherwise. Albus could not see through to the other side of the mirror. He had lost, again, like he always seemed to.

 

By 1949, Albus moved the Mirror of Erised out of the forbidden wing of the castle and into his own chambers. It served as a surrogate Gellert, and if he squinted, he could almost relive his fondest moments with the same rose colored glasses.

Albus watched his younger self slice his palm. He watched himself waltz with that beautiful boy, in the half-light of a flickering candle. He watched them exchange sloppy kisses in the graveyard behind a cloak and he felt special and wanted all over again. Then, the memory would fade and Albus was left alone and utterly lonely.

He had new problems now, as he watched a precocious dark haired boy with the same arrogance as his younger self turn down a job at the Ministry. Tom Riddle had everything to his advantage: a quick mind, a firm grip on his magic, and the classic Slytherin ambition that made Albus suspect there was something more to his odd choice of employment. Tom was too proud to settle himself as a salesman at Borgin and Burkes. Albus had his suspicions from the start.

Yearning was a pastime. He hoped they were feeding Gellert well, but he was too afraid of the answer to send an owl.

Thirty years, Albus thought one afternoon, as he watched the Mirror of Erised replay and replay choice mornings, when Gellert had been particularly candid. He couldn’t recall how he had been so cruel, to stay so silent for so long. During those years, Albus would have given anything to make Gellert go away. Now, these memories were sorted into some of his best.

“I miss you,” said Gellert, to an Albus who didn’t care, “Nobody will ever take your place.”

“I miss you too,” whispered Albus as he pressed his fingers against the glass.

 

“Albus,” said the mirror, and Albus jumped. Albus was sitting at his desk, finishing some last minute grading. His quill hand was tired and his eyes were heavy, and at first the voice - so familiar and yet so foreign - had seemed a hallucination.

“Gellert?” Albus desperately reached for his hand mirror, “Is that you?”

The eyes that met his own were unmistakably Gellert’s but the face was not. His hair, beard and moustache were long grown out, matted with grime and blood. The skin that stretched over his skull was thin and pale, as though he hadn’t seen sunlight in some time.

“Obviously me,” Gellert managed, his voice throaty and parched, “Who else?”

“My God,” Albus gently touched the shadows under Gellert’s eyes, “Gellert, I’ve missed your voice.”

Gellert's lips pulled back over rotted teeth into something that was halfway between a snarl and a smile. “Have you missed me? I bet your life has been hell up with your classes, and your friends, and your Ministry on its knees before you, ready to suck your cock whenever you --”

“Gellert,” Albus said before he could stop himself, “I’m sorry.”

“Save it,” Gellert snapped, “We’re both trapped in towers now and you’re not sorry.”

Albus didn’t know what to say to that. Obviously, they weren’t feeding him well enough and obviously, nobody would. Not a soul was left who still openly cared for Gellert Grindelwald. The name was sour on the world’s tongue.

“Don’t talk, Albus,” said Gellert, “I got an owl the other day. I never get owls, so I was all excited to rip the paper off, to feel something beneath my fingernails other than dirt and dirty water. You can’t imagine my surprise when it was a coded message from Tom Riddle, the young man who wants to fashion himself a new Dark Lord.”

Albus rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, wishing suddenly that it really was a late night delusion.

“What? What did he want, Gellert?”

“Just what you would expect,” Gellert smiled manically. “Information on certain kinds of dark magic.”

“What kinds of dark magic?”

“Soul splitting kinds,” Gellert picked at his filthy fingernails, “He wants to master Death too. It’s very cute.”

Albus’s heart was racing wildly in his chest. Gellert knew many secrets of the dark arts that even Albus himself had never explored. “What did you say to him?”

At that, Gellert smiled again, a faded glimmer of his old self twinkling in his eyes.

“I wrote him back and told him to split his soul up his ass.”

“Gellert!” Albus exclaimed, allowing himself a tiny smile.

“I’ve had a few pieces of fan-mail from those who think themselves an heir to the title,” Gellert reclined, sprawling himself across his tiny cot, “but this by far was the most intriguing. Keep an eye on him, Albus, if you’re still in the business of ruining the lives of Dark Wizards.”

“Gellert,” Albus started, but he was cut off by the quiet click of a mirror sitting on its face. Gellert’s image disappeared and Albus stared back at himself, eyes filling with dread behind his spectacles.

 

Albus was so burdened with Riddle’s rise, trying to prevent the Wizarding World from spiralling into yet another war, that he had almost forgotten about the mirror bond. He was teaching, but with half the energy as normal, reserving his will to orchestrate a dedicated battle against his former student.

Tom had disappeared clean off the map, but traces lingered. His network was sometimes too careless, shadowy messages drifting from Borgin and Burke’s to the Hog’s Head, rumors of his imminent rise to power.

It was evening again, when Gellert finally caught Albus, pouring over a coded message that Aberforth had intercepted. He jumped as he glanced up and they locked eyes.

“Gellert!” Albus whispered sharply, “What is it? Has he reached out to you again?”

Gellert cocked his head, the wild mess of hair flopping comically over his eyes. “Has who reached out?”

“Riddle,” Albus lowered his voice another pitch, “Who else?”

“What?” Gellert rolled his eyes way up into his skull, tilting his head back in disgust. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about Tom Riddle. I miss you, Albus, I’m going crazy in here. I think I might be falling ill.”

Gellert looked roughly the same as the last time they had spoken, thin and gaunt and pale. Age and neglect has run their course over his skin and his eyes were deeply sunken. They were filled with something new, shameless and animalistic. Solitude had not made itself his friend, any more than it had been a friend to Albus.

“That’s age,” Albus said, gesturing to Gellert’s face, “We’re getting old, my friend.”

“I ache,” Gellert hissed through his teeth. “I’m bored. My mind, my body, they’re wasting away around me while you chase after some boy half your age.”

“Chase after him?” Albus almost choked, “You can’t possibly be jealous that I’m trying to save the world from him.”

“What if I am? Would you chase me instead?”

Albus looked at Gellert, in awe. “What do you think?”

A beat of silence passed between them before Gellert broke into a raucous laugh. “Thinking is for _headmasters,”_ he spat the word with disdain, “I can’t think over the screams. Every waking moment, it’s bodies and ash and shrieks of pain and I can’t tell if it’s a vision of the future or simply the past again and again.”

“I’m sorry,” Albus said, “I’m truly sorry.”

He turned the mirror on its head, silencing Gellert mid-jeer, and returned to the open arithmancy book and his letter.

 

“Do you remember the time I visited you through the lake water?” Gellert was sprawled on his cot again, holding the mirror over his head, “I was so determined to make you want me that I didn’t realize how much I wanted you. Not until you showed up, flushing and wanton.”

“Wordy tonight,” said Albus, refusing to treat Gellert to the reaction he wanted, “Of course I remember.”

“I’m sorry about Riddle,” Gellert said, “I didn’t realize what he was.”

“Lord Voldemort,” Albus corrected, “Not that his new name is any easier to take seriously. Why did you bring up the lake?”

Gellert sighed. “Any day might be your last, yes? That’s what they’re saying -- that this _Lord Voldemort_ is the greatest Dark Lord of all time and you’ve positioned yourself against him?”

“Don’t talk that way,” Albus looked directly at him, “I’m not going to die, Gellert.”

“Oh.” Gellert flipped on his side, bringing the mirror so close to his face that Albus could make out his pores, “Can we talk about it anyway?”

 

Albus’s Order rose and Albus’s Order fell. Unlike their namesake, they didn’t rise again from the ashes. It left Albus sick in his own skin. He was old, even by wizarding standards, and utterly alive when so many brilliant wizards and witches were gone forever.

It was over now. Diagon Alley glimmered with strings of enchanted light, dancing bodies, and whispers of a boy who lived. After all of the fighting, all of the lost lives, Lord Voldemort had been defeated by a baby. In fiction, Albus thought, finales had a way of tying up every loose end. The climax of the story was always bold and bright. The brave heroes who laid their lives down for the greater good were avenged.

In real life, the world rattled, barely clinging to its hinges. Nobody knew how young Harry Potter had survived the killing curse, let alone how he had reversed it. Albus thought it too good to be true.

Yes, celebrations were held in every pub, house, and Ministry, but they were also funerals. The strange sense of mourning coupled itself with the emptiness of a war without a definitive conclusion. One day, Lord Voldemort had seemed unstoppable. The next, he was gone. Albus couldn’t bring himself to celebrate, even when the strange little hero was deposited on his muggle family’s doorstep.

“It’s not over,” Gellert told him, as though he didn’t know, “He comes back.”

“A Vision?”

“No,” Gellert shook his head, “but they always come back. Evil always comes back.”

 

Today was circled on Albus’s calendar, in a deep sapphire ink. Enough years had gone by since Lord Voldemort had met his end, that this kind of anniversary mattered once again. Albus had slept in late, warm in his covers. When he finally looked into his hand mirror, Gellert was waiting for him, clean cut and shaven for the first time in decades.

Albus beamed, despite himself. Overnight, Gellert had lost thirty years from his face and his grey eyes were shining.

“I see you received my package.”

Gellert held the large stack of books, newspapers, and sweets to the mirror, nodding. “The razor was a nice touch. You always preferred me clean shaven. Although enchanting it to only cut through hair was a bit much.”

“It was the only way they’d let it in.”

“I know,” said Gellert, “Thank you. I’ll have to keep myself pretty for you now.”

His tone was jovial, but there was a darker note to it, something like spite. Albus frowned. It was a thankless job, being chained to each other, growing around the absence of space. Albus always took his own freedom with a grain of salt, knowing full well he was also captive. One of these days they would die: Albus, a hero, and Gellert, a villain. History books would sort them, two great wizards, one dark and one light; as though they weren’t the same.

“I wish you had visited,” Gellert said, “the books are nice, and the sweets are even better, but for God’s sake, Albus, it’s been forty years since I saw you in the flesh.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Why?” Gellert hands shook, trembling his image in the mirror, “Because of Voldemort, who was killed five years ago? Or because you prefer me at a distance where I can’t hurt you? Or is it your precious reputation, which would be ruined if you were caught visiting your old _friend_?”

Albus recoiled, sinking lower into his chair. “I have a responsibility to Hogwarts. If he returns, I have to --”

“You have a responsibility to me!” Gellert roared, “You put me here and you use me when I’m useful, and so I am your problem.”

Swallowing the lump inside his throat, Albus forced himself to meet Gellert’s eyes. He was filled with a sudden longing to lay him down, kiss his eyelids and stroke his thinning hair. It had never been a fair bargain: no matter who was benefitting.

Some days were silent, and some days passed without so much as a glance. Some days were filled with banter, and other days with cold, cutting truths. Without the mirror bond, Albus thought, he might still be trying to forget that summer.

“Before this is over,” Albus promised, “We’ll see eachother again.”

“Good.”

Albus reached for his mirror, pressing fingertips across Gellert’s temple. “Happy birthday, my old friend,” he said.

Gellert reached back, and Albus swore he could almost feel his warmth through the glass.

 

In Nurmengard, Albus imagined, Gellert waited. His grimy fingers would wipe trails of dirt and oil along old issues of The Prophet. Voldemort’s name would blot the grease from his hair and wipe his ass, perhaps, in the worst possible scenario.

After Gellert had pointed it out, Albus had taken care to send him packages. He sent real food, and soap, and on one occasion a huge box of chocolate frogs -- hoping that Gellert might get at least one _Albus Dumbledore,_ see their names so close together, and laugh.

It had been monthly, and then yearly. Since Voldemort’s rebirth, the care packages had stopped entirely.

Albus should have made sure Gellert still had the basic amenities, but he was distracted. These past few years had aged him rapidly. He was brittle, tired of running from lie to lie; playing the same chess game with Death and sacrificing pieces that were not his to give.

As the owl came to renew Gellert’s subscription to The Prophet, it occured to Albus that they hadn’t seen each other in many months. Last time they had spoken, Gellert had bemoaned it.

“If I was there,” he’d said, “you’d have half as much work to do and twice as much of a reason to do it.”

Albus had smiled. The thought of releasing his old friend had never been more tempting, but his influence in the wizarding world was dwindling. The name Dumbledore had lost its impact to those outside the Ministry and to those within, it was scoffed at. Albus had shied away from power and got what he bargained for. If he even made a move towards Nurmengard, he would be lucky not to be imprisoned there himself.

“After the war,” Albus had promised, but it was becoming clearer and clearer that war would outlive him.

  
It was 1996 by the time Albus saw Gellert in the mirror again. He had witnessed Gellert in glimpses, but years had passed since he had last taken the time to really look at him. Gellert was the same tangle of hair and aging skin that he had been before Albus’s packages, if not even more faded. He wasted no time, eyes alight at the sight of Albus’s face, dangling a piece of parchment in his fingertips in front of the mirror.

“He wrote again,” Gellert said, “Even Voldemort isn’t too busy for me. He promises to free me too, you know, and I think his offer is looking more and more tempting.”

“Gellert,” Albus’s voice warned, “What does he want?”

“What do I owe to you?” Gellert hissed, “You only care when it’s convenient.”

Albus swallowed the words as they pierced straight to his core.

“He’ll kill you, Gellert.” Unlike us, Albus thought, who spared each other and made ourselves hostages. Love was something that Lord Voldemort could not understand.

“Good for him. Solves both our problems.”

“ _Gellert._ ” At that moment, Albus felt the fledgling realization that had been building within him for the past ten years come to fruition. There was no way to balance the entire world and Gellert Grindelwald. If Tom did go to Nurmengard, if Tom freed him for information, if Tom killed him - Albus had to remember what was at stake. Gellert was right: Albus hadn’t made time for him. Time, the coldest and most loveless entity, was running out.

“I’m sorry,” Albus whispered, “I have to go.”

“WAIT!” Gellert screamed, his voice cracking, “I didn’t tell him that you had It! I kept it a secret! I’ve always cared about you, I’ll always --”

In one solid motion, Albus smashed his mirror into the floor, cradling his blackened hand. He closed his eyes.

 

The chill breeze swept through Albus’s hair, sending wayward locks flying all around him. He couldn’t look Harry in the eye, only straight through him, out into the still black water. The boat bobbed slightly as it slowed beside the shimmering green basin.

“You remember,” he said to Harry, “the conditions on which I brought you with me?”

Harry looked from the basin to Albus’s eyes, hesitating.

“But -- what if --”

“You swore, did you not, to follow any command I gave you?”

“Yes, but --”

“Well then,” Albus said firmly. It was too much to put on a boy of his age, but then, it always had been, “You have my orders.”

Looking straight ahead, Albus lowered the crystal goblet deep within the basin, filling it to the brim. The harsh green light from the potion reflected off of his glasses. He looked at Harry, one last time for good measure. “To your good health.”

When Albus looked into the goblet, he was met with only his own empty stare. Please, Albus prayed for the first time since he was a boy, to whatever entity might listen, if I don’t see him tonight, let him know what he was to me.

The first sip of the liquid tasted rotten on his tongue. Albus quickly swallowed down the entire glassful. A few moments later, his body erupted into fire, stomach seizing around the liquid, as it spasmed through him. He squeezed his eyes shut around hot tears -- gritted his teeth -- reaching for another portion. Albus barely heard Harry ask him how he felt, and didn’t dare look up, for fear he would give up on the potion entirely.

He searched for Gellert in the second glassful, and the third, his own eyes bulging bloodshot through his glasses, screaming unintelligibly, as his head smashed forward against the basin.

Some version of himself was smiling down from the cave ceiling, a manifestation of his inner voice.

You’re alone, Albus thought to himself, Isn’t that what you wanted? He filled the goblet again, wasting no time to bring it to his lips.

“Professor, can you hear me?” Harry said, loudly. Albus managed to shake himself free, if only for a moment. He looked up at Harry, quivering. He thought I was a hero, Albus thought, as another wave of pain coarsed through him.

“I don’t want…” He was dizzy, losing control of his conscious thought, “Don’t make me...want to stop...”

“You...you can’t stop, Professor,” said Harry who, all shiny-eyed, was painted like the perfect martyr “You’ve got to keep drinking, remember? Here…”

Albus flinched as Harry pushed the goblet back towards him. He looked down into the depths of the potion, heart racing. If this was torture, where was Ariana, strawberry blond hair unbraided and white sundress dirty? Where were the screams of the men and women who had died before Albus had time to save them, the pieces he had sacrificed?

Where were the warm brown eyes of Edgar Bones? The sharp laughing wrinkles of Benjy Fenwick? Where were the Longbottoms, wit draining as their expressions glazed over? Where was Gellert?

In his heart of hearts, Albus knew the answer. A muggle philosopher had once said that hell is other people. Albus disagreed.

He felt the potion rush through his blood, an electric current, stopping just below his eyes. There was nothing worse than looking down into that chalice and seeing his own reflection.

“It’s all my fault,” he cried, “all my fault. Please make it stop. I know I did wrong, oh please make it stop and I’ll never, never again.”

 

***

 

We’ve been chains to each other, Gellert thought, as his fingers traced Albus’s name in The Prophet, and it isn’t right that he should get a tomb while I shall be lucky to find a headstone.

We’ve never owed each other anything, Gellert thought, as he picked up his quill and tore a scrap from a half-used piece of parchment.

Gellert labelled the envelope carefully and walked to the cages where the last remaining owl took it in her brittle talons.

Three months later, as the dark figure crashed into his tower, Gellert stood up and laughed, still clutching his mirror.


End file.
